


Polaris

by Ashirene



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, F/F, Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:48:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22484404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashirene/pseuds/Ashirene
Summary: Edelgard had known for a long time now that the chances of finding something—anything—at the top of the Goddess Tower were slim.But that doesn't stop her from clinging to that last, self-indulgent hope that on the fifth anniversary of the ball, she will have an opportunity to keep her side of the promise she made.Edeleth one-shot.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & My Unit | Byleth, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 12
Kudos: 95





	Polaris

The ruins of the monastery were always lonelier in the long winter days and the even longer winter nights.

In a world that seemed to have moved on without her, there were places in the ancient buildings that seemed to hold time still: the way she would have preferred things.

Rain and snow pooled in dark corners that no one had bothered to repair. Wind whispered around the edges of buildings lined with rubble. And although no one had seeded them, the hellebores had grown back in the flowerbeds around the monastery, their petals edged and heavy with frost in the late Ethereal Moon weather.

Although she had no particular reason to, Edelgard bent down to touch one of their white petals as if to admire the blossom, but in reality staring at nothing but her own thoughts.

She would never be able to forget looking for that flash of mint green in the rubble’s depths, now hidden by greenery and winter blossoms that were creeping back to reclaim the stone into their embrace.

Even though the memory was almost, but not quite, five years old now, it burned into her consciousness as clearly and as defined as the two crests she carried.

It was always worse at this time of the year, when the weather was similar to _that_ day, when there was less talk of the war due to the winter snows, when she recalled that one particular night when—

“My lady.”

Hubert’s quiet, deep tones emerged from the darkness behind her, his footsteps muffled by the steady _drip drip_ of melting snow outside.

“Yes?” Her voice was steady—the way she had practiced it to be long ago.

He paused, clearly weighing something in his mind. “…If you will permit me one request, Your Majesty, although I know I am not in any position to make any of you.”

Edelgard did not reply, but narrowed her eyes at him as she half-turned her head towards him, a silent half indication, half challenge for him to go on.

“You must stop spending so much time here in the ruins alone. Apart from your… constitution and the risk of catching cold, there are rumours of bandits—“

“Are you insinuating that I am incapable of protecting myself?”

“No, my lady, but—“

“Then leave me be, Hubert.” She paused for a brief heartbeat, catching herself with a small breath, knowing deep down that Hubert had never understood her feelings towards the professor, and how much that one tenuous, fragile promise had meant to her. _Even if I made it knowing I had to break it, even if it had never come to be, I still wanted to make it. I wanted that one piece of selfish hope that I could cling to._

 _Especially now, when_ I _was the one who could not keep it._

Hubert held her gaze for the fraction of a moment longer, before he relented, bowing and apologizing for his impudence before retreating into the darkness, his footfalls fading into silence.

Edelgard turned her gaze back to the ruins of the cathedral, a hole torn into the ceiling of mosaics that let grey, filtered winter light hit the stone floor below.

_I wanted to keep my—our—promise._

She wasn’t aware that she had whispered the words aloud until their echoes fell in the silent halls around her.

She had repeated those words over and over to herself in the last four years, as though they would lessen her heartache and reduce the impact of her feelings… as though they would somehow turn back time itself. _If I could only redo that day, one more time. If I only had one more chance…_

Raindrops hit her face, the winter wind lifting long strands of white hair in the breeze as Edelgard tilted her head upwards, facing the gap in the ceiling. She took a deep breath, in hopes that it would somehow drive away the tumour of anguish that had spawned at the back of her throat and the wall of memories and heavy absence in her chest that had engendered it.

_I wanted to tell you. Everything. How I felt—when you said you would stood with me in Enbarr, when you said you would side with me no matter what._

The cold wetness on her cheek didn’t feel like rain. Impatiently, Edelgard reached up to brush it away. Emperors didn’t cry. She hated crying—it was useless and selfish and weak.

She let her fingers linger on the smooth, cold rock in front of her, before slowly closing them in a fist and resting her forehead on the silent stone.

_I wanted to tell you._

* * *

She had watched the last four years move on without her.

Dorothea, playing with the orphans in the markets and the gardens, occasionally humming to herself. If it was a good day, the children could convince her to sing something from her opera days.

The singer had tried to interest her in tending to the monastery’s gardens, and had tried to introduce her to the orphans that frequented the markets, but Edelgard found that she couldn’t face them, each one of them having lost one or both of their parents in the war that she had started.

Caspar, practicing in the courtyard, having coaxed Petra into joining him occasionally. They always extended their invites to her, and Edelgard had joined them a few times, but she found that she could never focus her attention on their training. Instead, with every swing of her axe at the practice dummies that Caspar had set up, she wondered if she had only been faster, better, stronger that day, then maybe…

Bernadetta, leaving her room occasionally, spending time with Linhardt in the library as her residence of choice if she had to leave her quarters. Edelgard had passed them on occasion, watching Bernadetta let out a squeak whenever their eyes met before hastily returning her gaze to her book.

Hubert and Ferdinand, badgering her in turns in an effort to focus her attention elsewhere, managing both the war and the empire as they had both had been brought up to do. In her better moments, Edelgard could appreciate how much both of them had done for her since the war had begun.

As for herself, Edelgard had spent the last four years going through the motions. Paperwork, war cabinets, politics, negotiating treaties—it was like a lifeless puppet had replaced her in her day to day life. She pulled her hair into her crown every morning not because she particularly wanted to, but because it was expected of her.

She had few things she treasured still: one of them was spending time alone in the last place that she had seen _her_. None of the Black Eagle Strike Force knew why she wanted to spend her free time in the damp ruins of the monastery.

They all wanted her to move on. She knew that.

_But I cannot. If I have to stand here forever, clinging to the hope that somewhere, sometime in this lifetime, we would meet again, I would._

She didn’t expect anyone to understand that.

* * *

The evening air was crisp and chilly as Edelgard led her entourage back towards the monastery, retracing her footsteps from hours ago. She held the handle of her weapon, not out of necessity, but for comfort. The smooth weight of Aymr’s handle gave her some semblance of grounding.

In reality, her heart hammered at her ribcage, anticipation and trepidation just under the surface, though she refused to show it. Keeping her face impassive was just another skill that she had perfected over the years.

The Black Eagle Strike Force was quiet, respectful of her choice. There wasn’t a single whisper of dissent—and for that, Edelgard was grateful. She was grateful that they trusted and cared for her enough, even through her betrayal of them, to entertain this one final, selfish hope. She was grateful that they had all volunteered immediately to accompany her without a second thought.

Bandits had moved into the surrounding area of the monastery in the last few years, hoping to loot the less patrolled area outside of the monastery’s borders. Her soldiers had encountered their fair share of them, and she had instructed them to show no mercy to the looters.

What Edelgard hadn’t told them was that she’d done it because— _because on the slim chance that she’s out there, I want to know about it right away._

She closed her eyes for a brief moment, looking out over the grounds that had somehow become home. It was just one more thing she owed _her_ for—a debt that seemed unending. A debt that no matter how much she wanted to, she could not return. Briefly, she wondered what she would be willing to give up so that she could return it.

Clouds had bit at the edge of the moon earlier in the evening, but the stiff breeze had since blown them away, allowing its light to illuminate the devastation from four years ago that had never been cleared away.

Out of habit, she scanned the landscape for even the smallest hint of that distinctive mint green hair, coming away, as always, disappointed. It had happened so often over the last four years that she wasn’t even really sure she felt disappointed anymore, just a heavy, almost aching frustration every time she found only stillness in the surrounding countryside.

Somehow, despite the emotions it always ignited like fire under her cold skin, the habit was hard to break. Perhaps it was because she didn’t want to.

The distant call of an eagle—the very same bird she had named her strike team after—brought her out of her thoughts.

The scent of petrichor was heavy as the hellebores waved whimsically in the breeze, almost as though greeting her again after a few hours absence.

Edelgard took a moment to prepare herself once more, for what she wanted to find, but knew there was an almost zero chance of her finding.

_Please._

She knew no goddess was out there to hear her silent plea, but… perhaps…

The lonely chime of the monastery’s bell sounded in the distance, echoing through the night’s stillness, interrupting her internal monologue. For now, the torches and clatter of weapons of her soldiers just outside the monastery’s walls seemed far away.

She took another breath, almost as though she was delaying the inevitable.

“Let’s go.” She beckoned her strike team—no, her _friends_ —forward with one hand.

Silently, they traversed the monastery grounds together, the pace not at all hurried, as though all of them were afraid of what they would find at the end of their short journey.

Edelgard took no notice of the muddy grass under her boots as she approached the old entrance hall. It had been seldom used over the last four years, as she much preferred to meet with the diplomats in the library’s old conference room rather than the cathedral. 

Winter wildflowers had grown over where the doors had been blasted apart by the hinges, their bright colours a striking contrast to the wet, windy winters that always gripped Garreg Mach.

Her footsteps echoed loudly in the darkness of the entrance hall, but even without the flames that Dorothea quickly conjured to illuminate the old torch brackets on the walls, Edelgard could make out the staircase at the very back of the hall by the moonlight alone.

She had imagined this particular journey so many times over the last few years that she no longer knew what she would say—or do—regardless of the outcome of this particular endeavour. Hubert and Ferdinand had tried to talk her out of it many times in the past few weeks, citing that she would only be hurt further if she found nothing there, but Edelgard had held fast in her decision.

_I have to know. Even if it hurts, even if this was all a selfish, stupid fantasy. Even if the answer isn’t the one I wanted._

_Please. Let me have this one... indulgence._

She stepped onto the bottom step of the staircase that spiralled upwards, towards the sky that peeked through the holes in the roof. Just beyond the wooden beams that held up the ceiling, Edelgard could spot a singular bright star just above them.

It was time to keep her side of the promise at the top of the Goddess Tower.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time foraying into the Fire Emblem fandom, but I've been in love with Edelgard/the Crimson Flower route ever since I played it. I wanted to explore the part of the timeskip that we didn't get to experience in the game. Edelgard fascinates me as a character, and she was fantasically fun to write in this one shot.
> 
> I've been sketching out a AU (my real passion, haha) for FE3H that I'd like to see come to life. Let me know if anyone is interested in reading a slow-burn/long Edeleth sci-fi story revolving around a futuristic megacity Fodlan and the crest experiements. o_o;;
> 
> Twitter: @ashera_
> 
> Please hit me up if you want to talk CF/FE3H—I always want to make more fandom friends. (◡‿◡✿)


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